Voucher Battles Head To State Capitals

The foundation has been laid for a new round of legislative battles
over school vouchers in state capitals from coast to coast.

Just days after the nation's highest court upheld the Cleveland
voucher program, lawmakers in California, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and
elsewhere were talking up plans to seize on what is perceived as a new
era for school choice.

"The constitutional debate is over," declared state Rep. Tony
Kielkucki of Minnesota, a Republican and a former Catholic-school
teacher. "The debate will now be a policy issue." He's already working
to revive his failed voucher bill from earlier this year.

But even as voucher supporters celebrated the June 27 ruling, state
policy experts pointed out that sizable hurdles must be cleared before
those proponents can improve on their mostly unsuccessful legislative
record.

To begin with, 37 state constitutions have language that prohibits
state aid from going to religious schools. While advocates of school
choice argue that such language is not insurmountable, it seems likely
to stall voucher plans.

What's more, the fight for public opinion and political support will
remain fierce. Since 1972, six pro-voucher state ballot initiatives
have been defeated. Numerous legislative efforts have suffered the same
fate. And it's not clear if the public is more willing now to embrace
vouchers—especially given a tepid economy that has many states
fighting simply to preserve current levels of education aid.

"Most states are dealing with deficits, and their energy is focused
on balancing budgets," said Todd Ziebarth, a policy analyst with the
Denver-based Education Commission of the States. "You'll see some
increased intensity, but I don't think the floodgates will open for
vouchers."

Well-financed teachers' union opposition to vouchers also remains
strong. In his July 2 keynote address to the National Education
Association convention in Dallas, outgoing NEA President Bob Chase
issued a warning to those looking to expand vouchers.

"We stand in principled opposition to vouchers," he told a crowd of
cheering teachers. "And to the voucher ideologues, we make this
promise: We will expose your false promises. We will lay bare your
lies. And as we have done in California, Michigan, and everywhere else
that vouchers have been on the ballot—we will defeat you!"

Still, now that the U.S. Supreme Court has flattened the Mount
Everest of a federal constitutional obstacle, voucher proponents are
eager to whittle away the remaining barriers—legal and
political.

Clint Bolick, the vice president of the Institute for Justice, the
Washington-based legal-advocacy group that has been in the thick of the
court battles over vouchers, said the ruling allows supporters to
"shift for the first time from defense to offense."

On State Turf

Such efforts are now under way.

For instance, the Minnesota Business Partnership is talking to Rep.
Kielkucki about renewing a fight over his plan to offer vouchers to
needy parents with children in low- performing schools. The proposal,
which died in the legislature this year, could provide up to $5,950 per
student—more than double Cleveland's $2,250.

Meanwhile, the same day that the Supreme Court announced its
decision, rumors flew in the Pennsylvania legislature that House
Majority Leader John M. Perzel was seeking votes to add a last-minute
voucher amendment to the state budget bill.

"It took on a life of its own," Stephen Miskin, a spokesman for the
Republican lawmaker, said of the rumors. Mr. Perzel is a voucher
supporter and, at the request of then-Gov. Tom Ridge, has sponsored
past voucher legislation. But Mr. Miskin denied that his boss had
angled to attach a voucher amendment to the budget bill; the spokesman
guessed a lobbyist had floated the idea.

In California, just hours after the court's ruling, Sen. Ray Haynes,
a Republican, huddled with his staff to draft a voucher bill he hopes
to introduce that would give parents of students in low-performing
schools tuition vouchers worth about $4,000.

But in a sign that the V-word remains primarily confined to the GOP
lexicon, California Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, declared the same day:
"Just because vouchers are legal does not make them right."

In the face of such divisions along partisan lines, the momentum
from the Supreme Court decision may not be enough to transform voucher
bills into law any time soon. By and large, voucher proposals have not
been well-received in state legislatures over the years. Despite
numerous efforts, Florida is the only state to have a statewide voucher
program. When Florida legislators passed their law in 1999,
legislatures in Arizona, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Texas defeated
such measures.

Even the support of popular governors like George W. Bush in Texas
and Mr. Ridge in Pennsylvania failed to help much.

More recently, most states have taken a wait-and-see attitude on
vouchers, knowing that the Supreme Court would likely take up the
constitutional issue raised by allowing parents to use public money for
religious schools, Mr. Ziebarth of the ECS said.

Even with that question resolved, he doubts the ruling will create a
wave of voucher programs comparable to the surge in charter schools in
the 1990s, when state economies were flush and there was bipartisan
support for the independent public schools.

Instead, lawmakers may back less controversial school choice
options, such as tuition tax credits or tax deductions, which give
parents a break on their state taxes to help offset private school
tuition.

"The ruling does create a more conducive overall climate for
choice," Mr. Ziebarth said. "It will just be interesting to see where
people put their energy."

Rep. Wayne Kuipers, the Republican chairman of the House education
committee in Michigan, says voucher fights must first be won at the
grassroots level.

"This [decision] may over time change people's perception about the
validity of vouchers," Mr. Kuipers said. "But I don't know if there
will be a rush to introduce legislation."

James E. Ryan, a law professor at the University of Virginia, said
that voucher programs will continue to have a limited impact unless
they are expanded. The most significant barrier to expansion, he
argued, is the opposition of suburban parents.

"Suburbanites would not be all that wild about urban students having
unlimited access to suburban schools," Mr. Ryan said. "A voucher
program threatens the status of suburban schools."

Legal Challenges

In addition to political impediments, voucher advocates have to
contend with provisions in 37 state constitutions, dating to the 1800s,
that prohibit state aid to religious schools.

For example, while Maine and Vermont, in a long-standing practice
known as "tuitioning," allow voucher-style tuition aid to students in
communities that do not have their own public high schools, a line has
been drawn when it comes to religious schools. Courts in both states
have blocked those programs from expanding to religious schools.

The Institute for Justice hopes to challenge such constitutional
amendments in federal court.

Meanwhile, voucher proponents will analyze the Supreme Court's
majority decision to shape proposals that offer school choice in the
context of options like charter schools and magnet schools, suggested
Perry A. Zirkel, a professor of law and education at Lehigh University
in Bethlehem, Pa.

That is important, he said, because the Supreme Court noted that
Cleveland parents can choose from a variety of school options, rather
than simply using vouchers for religious schools.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the crucial swing vote in the Ohio
case, wrote that the Cleveland program "affords parents of eligible
children genuine nonreligious options and is consistent with the
establishment clause [of the First Amendment]."

Added Mr. Zirkel, "You want to provide a broader range of options,
so if there was a legal challenge you can show a true range of
choice."

Expanding in Florida

Len Reiser, a co-director of the Education Law Center in
Philadelphia, said that beyond the remaining constitutional challenges,
many states may be unwilling to shift the focus from standards-based
reform efforts to the unproven and politically shaky terrain of
vouchers.

"The focus has been how to improve public schools," Mr. Reiser said.
"We haven't heard a lot of people in Pennsylvania suggesting the way to
improve education is through vouchers.

"The issue with vouchers," he continued, "is more complicated than
this constitutional cloud."

Meanwhile, last month's decision has cleared the way for further
legal action in Florida, where a challenge to the state's voucher
program had been put on hold since February, pending the Supreme
Court's ruling on the Cleveland program.

A Leon County Circuit Court judge in Tallahassee was scheduled to
hear a motion for summary judgment on July 9 filed by the Florida
Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which has argued that
Florida's voucher program violates the state constitutional ban on
providing public funds directly or indirectly to a church or sectarian
institution.

Sunshine State education leaders have greeted the high court's
ruling with enthusiasm. "This reaffirms the belief that parents are the
ones best equipped to make decisions regarding the educational
opportunities for their children," Commissioner of Education Charlie
Christ said.

Florida's program offers vouchers to students in schools that have
been given a failing grade on state testing for two out of four years.
Worth up to $4,000 each, the vouchers can be used at public, private,
or religious schools.

In 1999, two elementary schools in Pensacola became the first
Florida schools eligible for vouchers. Following the newest round of
state test grades released in June, 10 more schools around the state
with some 8,900 students will be eligible for the vouchers.

Ballot Prospects

In addition to impending legislative efforts, school choice
advocates are likely to consider campaigns to take their plans straight
to voters.

Ballot initiatives that would have created vouchers have failed once
each in Colorado and Maryland, and twice each in California and
Michigan.

But the outlook could change following the recent decision, said M.
Dane Waters, the president of the Washington-based Initiative and
Referendum Institute, which tracks ballot initiatives.

Voucher advocates, he added, have often lacked a consistent message.
He pointed to the failed 2000 initiative in California that was
criticized even by voucher supporters as being overly broad. That
proposal, unlike the voucher program upheld in Cleveland, would not
have been limited to children of low-income families in a specific
school district. The measure was organized and backed by a Silicon
Valley venture capitalist who ignored suggestions to seek a smaller
program. He spent some $23 million on the measure, which was
resoundingly defeated.

"In the last election cycle, the school choice movement was
splintered," Mr. Waters said.

Joe Overton, the senior vice president of the Mackinac Center for
Public Policy, a free-market research institute in Midland, Mich., said
school choice advocates in his state have learned from lopsided defeats
of 1978 and 2000 voucher initiatives.

As a result, he expects a state initiative on tuition tax credits,
rather than vouchers, sometime in 2004 or 2006. "In Michigan, the word
'voucher' is radioactive," Mr. Overton said. "Tax credits are much more
politically viable."

Campaign Issue

With gubernatorial elections in 36 states this coming November and
legislative elections in just about every state, observers are watching
to see what role a debate over vouchers and other school choice
programs might play.

David Paris, the vice president for academic affairs and a professor
of political science at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., said that
while some candidates will jump on the issue, others might avoid it..
"It all depends," he said, "on the local landscape and teachers'
organizations in those states."

Vouchers seem sure to be a campaign issue in Ohio, whose legislature
enacted the program that has passed muster with the Supreme Court.
Lawmakers there who support school choice say they will push to build
the Cleveland program. "There is no question in Ohio that from the lake
to the river, there is interest in expanding school choices," said
David Zanotti, the president of both the Ohio School Choice Committee
and the Ohio Roundtable, an education and research organization.

Half the state's Senate seats and all seats in the House are up for
grabs this fall. "There's a very significant battle ahead," Mr. Zanotti
said..

Ohio Sen. Jim Jordan, a Republican, already is promising that he and
other lawmakers will push to increase the value of the vouchers in
Cleveland and expand the program to other districts.

In Wisconsin, Rep. Luther S. Olsen, the Republican chairman of the
Assembly education committee, doubts Milwaukee's voucher program will
expand because other communities are not clamoring for voucher
programs.

While Cleveland became a natural fit for a voucher program because
it was the largest and worst-performing district in Ohio, Sen. Jordan
said other urban systems are prime candidates.

"The way to do it politically is to build on what has happened in
Cleveland," he said. "The horse is out of the barn, but it'll be a
fight."

Vol. 21, Issue 42, Pages 1, 24-25

Published in Print: July 10, 2002, as Voucher Battles Head To State Capitals

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